


The Only Thing Inevitable

by plumedy



Category: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Genre: Gen, Microfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/pseuds/plumedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something I dreamt of. Yeah, I have bizarre dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Thing Inevitable

‘I’m dying,’ said Nately.

‘Pack it in!’

‘No, I really am dying,’ his voice sounded tired, as if he were being forced to explain something obvious to somebody stupid.

Yossarian turned to him and walked forward, taking his headphones off. The plane was droning steadily.

‘You are… dying?’ he asked dully.

‘It’s because Cathcart already wrote a KIA notification for me. He called me in his office a week ago and showed it to me. Then he asked: “Buried?”

Nately smirked.

‘”Buried,” I said. But then the other day I was alive. And the next day, too.’

Yossarian sat in the copilot’s seat.

‘I never thought you would die this way.’

‘Yeah, I know. It is all too fast for me.’

‘Acrimony, constant grumbling-‘

‘kids, misanthropy,’ continued Nately in the same merry-yet-tired voice, ‘then a properly long and solemn death. I know.’

The nose of the plane slightly bent forward, as though bowing before the ground. The sun was shining on the fields below.

‘Are you… beyond help?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ answered Nately politely.

‘We could try the absurd?’

‘The absurd? Like what? Making silly noises? Cock-a-doodle-doo?’

‘Kitty-kitty-kitty?’

‘Oink-oink.’

Yossarian sobbed with silent laughter.

A minute later he reached out for the controls and gently removed Nately’s cold hands. The plane was now flying quite low over the grassy fields. Yossarian looked down at a small shining brook hidden in the alders. On its shores tulips were already in blossom, and with sudden clarity he saw in their fresh and cool petals disturbed by the wind the omen of the only thing in this world inevitable.


End file.
